[Lacquer/Wood Crafts] What you need to know before purchasing online: What is lacquer finished wood crafts?

About wood used as material for wood crafts

In order to deepen your understanding of wood, it is important to first understand the forest situation around the world and in Japan. We will also introduce you to precious woods.

・World forest situation

Currently, the world's forest area accounts for about 30% of the land area, but it continues to decrease every year. The reasons for this are excessive logging due to increased demand for timber due to global population growth, conversion to agricultural land, forest fires, and illegal logging. In order to protect forests, laws and regulations in each country specify the area, amount, area, tree species, etc. that can be deforested, and logging that is carried out in violation of this law is called illegal logging, which accounts for 15 to 30% of the world's deforestation. is considered illegal.

This illegally logged timber is also imported into Japan, and in order to protect the world's forests, it is important to purchase timber that has been proven to be legal and sustainable.

・Japanese forest situation

The forest situation in Japan is different from the forest situation around the world. Japan is one of the world's most forested countries. However, the number of unmaintained artificial forests is increasing, and forest density continues to increase. If the forest density becomes too high, the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed will decrease and it will cause landslides. The decline in the number of forestry workers is also a major problem, and a virtuous cycle is needed to buy and use domestic timber at reasonable prices.

・What is precious wood?

Although the definition of precious wood is ambiguous, it refers to wood that has a higher ornamental value than general materials used for building frames. It can refer to trees that are long (approximately 200 years or more), have heather growth such as chijimimoku or grape heather, or conversely, trees with a high density of growth rings with straight grain. There are many.

Mokkondo's wood crafts use many precious woods. From a sustainable perspective, we will only use domestic materials from now on, excluding our current inventory.

What is a mold?

Wood crafts include a variety of techniques such as hollowing, joining, turning, bending, and many others, and the wood crafts of Mokkondo are called Kurimono. Hollows are objects made by cutting or carving a block of wood with a knife.

The process of making wooden crafts (hollows) with a wipe lacquer finish

The work process until a wooden craft is completed is as follows (the process changes flexibly).

・Step1…Design idea and sketch

Sketch the image you want to create.

・Step2…Material selection, sawing

We carefully select materials that match the design and saw them to a certain extent.

・Step3…Create drawings

Draw the front, back, cross section, etc. on paper.

・Step4…Creating a template (pattern/pattern board)

We create a template based on the drawing (in some cases, we do not create a template).

・Step5…Mark the prototype material

Mark the prototype material using the template.

・Step6…Creating a prototype

Make a prototype to check the shape (if there is a problem with the prototype, go back to Step 3 and try again).

・Step7… Mark on the wood

If there are no problems with the prototype, we will use the template to mark the actual wood that will become the product.

・Step8…Tree modeling

The wood is sawn again along the marks, and the wood is finally carved and shaped. There are many materials with heathered edges, so be careful about skipped stitches and reverse stitches.

・Step9…Wipe lacquer

The lacquer is applied and polished approximately 10 times, and the lacquer is rubbed and wiped down 10 to 20 times.

Mokukondo's mail order site carries a wide variety of wooden crafts with a wipe lacquer finish, such as chopsticks , shoe horns , and hand mirrors.

If you are looking for high-quality chopsticks that you can use for a long time online, please choose Kikkondo's online shopping site.

We have chopsticks for women (210mm) and men (230mm).